Mayor Bloomy is occupied with the letter “S”: Fie on salt, down on sugar, poo on smoking. Also Sadik-Khan‘s bike lanes, pedestrian malls, food courts and near 34th Street screw-up. But, pressing ahead with the letter “S,” how about New Yorkers’ schloompiness.
I walked the city the other day. OK, I know cart owners hustling hot dogs and week-old falafel aren’t in Armani. Fat pretzels rubbed across their bodies to loosen extra salt clashes with bespoke Savile Row. I get that. But what about the rest of Manhattan’s civilization? Blue suits are only for bar mitzvahs? Ties have gone the way of knickers? Grown men emerged from the womb wearing Nikes? Shoes get worn only for ice-skating?
Our world spends money on DVDs and iPads — just not on clothes.
Maybe the fashion world took the designer label too far. Calvin Klein nasal spray? Gloria Vanderbilt designer aspirin tablets? Yves Saint Laurent arch supports? A truss with Kim Kardashian‘s face on it? Milk of Magnesia in a Bottega Veneta-designed Lalique bottle? How about Ex-Lax by Gucci?
Whatever the reason, males today dress in T-shirts bearing four-letter phrases. Polo shirts with embroidered alligators. Open-necked short-sleeved Orlon jobs under sweaters. They ride the subway in rush hour just to get the shirt pressed. Outerwear is a zip-front all-weather hoodie. What you wear for shoveling snow not for the snow job that’s shovelled around a boardroom.
And the bottom half proves the end does not justify the jeans. It’s low-cut pants in three sizes — small, medium and don’t bend over. The butt crack is so visible they needn’t change for a colonoscopy.
Let us discuss the crotch. We’re talking really low-slung. Pants any lower would be knee socks. Instead of a plastic Duane Reade shopping bag guys can carry purchases right in their drawers. Each of them looks like a page torn out of Esquire.
The style was born in prisons. In early days of chain gangs, felons were not awarded those fashionable orange jailhouse jumpsuits. Their made-to-measure tailoring was one-size-fits-all. Built like John Goodman or John Waters, every john looked alike.
Skinny ones kept the pants up with rope around the waistband. Their caboose hung loose as a goose.
Patrolling the streets, I first thought the style was because people didn’t know what to wear on the unemployment line. No. Even executives dress so down that local thrift shops refuse their clothes. Passersby drop coins in their coffee cups.
Only Charlie Sheen or Elvis Costello wears the standard fedora. Every other head does baseball caps or wool stocking hats. The good part is they’ll never go out of style. They’ll just look grungy year after year.
Both sexes now dress similarly. You can’t tell them apart. Take the long hair. Not on the girls. On the guys. I said to a lady at a coffee-shop counter: “It’s terrible how boys look like girls these days.” “That’s my son,” she said, pointing to the girl I was pointing at. I said: “Oh, sorry. I didn’t know you were the mother.” She snapped indignantly: “I’m not. I’m the father.”
At least 2011 has brought in one new big business. Maternity fashions in school colors. Coming up is a department store’s full-page Easter ad with the headline: “Maternity dresses for the modern miss.”
Everything has gone far too far. Females only tart up with accessories. Massive buckles on belts the width of that Egyptian cobra. Huge shoulder tote bags that smack into you on the street. Giant orthopedic 6-inch-high platform stilts on their feet. Low heels are only for dating a short fat bald millionaire. Everything in between is micro mini.
Question in a department store’s dressing room: “Have you anything shorter?” Answer: “Try the collar department.”
In ye auld wagon train days, ankle-length skirts picked up germs. Don’t ask what these short skirts pick up.
The only thing getting longer is shoulder straps. Nowadays showing style means showing a lot. On the city street, it’s shorts. Short shorts. Also visible bra straps. Also visible bras for those few who don’t bobble around without bothering to wear them.
One style this season:slips. Simple slips. The slips women previously put on under dresses. Now we slither into designers’ filmy see-through creations without the slips because the slips we’re suddenly wearing as dresses, and those sheer dresses we’re wearing are made to see through. If the lady doesn’t want her appendectomy to show, they’ll have to remove it through her nose.
No stockings is also in because painted toenails peep out of open-toed shoes. Also in is being out of underpants. Also de rigueur are tight tight outer pants. So tight that the females who stretch them on just look like they’re in too far.
Enough already.